Cox has done a great job with EQ. The horse takes care of himself and doesn't do any more than he has to. A good sign.
BTW,
Whitmore has been retired; a suspensory injury from his race yesterday. A great great sprinter.
As to the Tapit vs. Into Mischief discussion (debate)... Both are SUPERSIRES.
You have to go back to 2017 for
Tapit's progeny to earn more money than
Into Mischief, and Tapit has more foals racing each year.
Tapit is 4 years older than Into Mischief (2001 vs. 2005). The average winning distance of their foals is significant; Tapit's foal's average winning distance is about 1.1 furlong longer per win than Into Mischief's (that's fairly large). There are many more races that are shorter than longer, but the Classics are longer, and the juvenile races are always shorter.
Except for singular horses like Gun Runner, Justify, and Arrogate, tipping a single sire's yearly total, Tapit and Into Mischief have been in the top 3 for years.
Into Mischief progeny cost more, but they earn more per starter so the market speaks the truth. Which one will have the better sire line or make the better broodmare sire? No one can tell, although Tapit has a better distance pedigree. Tapit has already produced sires
Constitution (
Tiz The Law) and
Tapizar (
Monomoy Girl), so his sire line will go on! Into Mischief has sired
Goldenscents (
By My Standards,
Mr. Money) and
Practical Joke (top 2YO sire this year), so he can get it done too.
Better sires than racers as they both earned $557k/$597k. Both with exactly 6 starts and 3 wins (Into Mischief also had 3 Places making him oh so superior
).They both would be considered milers from what they presented on the track. But with ONLY 6 races, we hardly knew them. They were obviously more talented than we saw and more valuable off the track than on.
In other news...
There was a question about
Hot Rod Charlie's next race; apparently he is pointing for the Pennsylvania Derby in 3 weeks. That will be raced in Pennsylvania according to the Department of Redundancy Department.
Guess who else is likely to be going to the Pennsylvania Derby if all goes well this afternoon?
Medina Spirit. Bob Baffert says his horse might be a little short going into the Shared Belief this afternoon. Is he telling the truth??
This past week I saw two non-starter declarations for horses for opposite reasons. A non-starter is when a horse runs a race, but money is returned to the bettors because of a problem with the horse's start or condition.
Case one, the horse broke through the starting gate a fraction of a second before the gate opened. It was barely perceptible, but true. A horse would otherwise get an advantage. Good call by the judges.
Case two, the starter (guy who pushes the button to open the gait) did not see that the last horse was still being loaded at the end of the gait. He pressed the button to open the gait while the assistant starter was walking in that horse at the moment the other horses took off. His horse was trained to take off through the chute too. The (small) assistant starter managed to roll through the chute, with the horse as he ran through the chute and fell to the ground and was OK. Fortunately the other horses were long gone so there was horse to stomp on him in the next chute. Obviously the end horse did not get a fair start and money was returned to the bettors.
Larry
DevilHorse